Events

Expert interview: The importance of industry standards

It's difficult to
imagine a world without industry standards. They ensure that different computer
products interact seamlessly, that we can make calls and access information on
our mobile phones, and that our televisions are able to receive and interpret
broadcast signals. And that's only scratching the surface. There are several thousands of standards that affect almost every aspect of our daily
lives, ranging from petroleum products and solar panels to GPS navigation
systems and medical devices.

Interview chapters:

What are industry standards?

What are industry standards
exactly, and how do they work?

Konstantinos Karachalios (KK): Standards are published documents that establish specifications and
procedures designed to maximise the reliability of products, materials and
services people use every day. They are implemented in products used in nearly
every facet of our lives, from aerospace and electronics to green technology, from transport to construction.

Standards address
a broad range of issues. They make products work better, make them compatible and
able to interact with other products, and safeguard consumer safety. They
simplify product development and speed up the time it takes for a product to get
to market.

In a nutshell,
standards fuel the development and implementation of technologies that
influence and transform the way we live, work and communicate.

Could you give an example of a
widely recognised standard?

KK: The IEEE 802
family of standards is a perfect example of a well-known, market-driven
standard in action. IEEE 802.11, often referred to as "Wi-Fi®", was originally
conceived to interconnect wireless cash registers, but it evolved into a
contribution that benefits society with revolutionary new mobile devices that
the world could not have even imagined a decade ago.

Wi-Fi already
underpins wireless networking applications around the world, such as wireless
access to the internet from our
offices and homes, but also from airports, hotels, restaurants, trains and even
aircraft - and the number of devices that are connected wirelessly is expanding
at furious pace. The standard's relevance has grown further with the emergence of new
applications, such as smart
grids and monitoring technologies in the healthcare industry.

How are industry standards created?

How
are standards agreed upon?

KK: First, it is perhaps helpful to differentiate
between de facto and consensus-based standards. A de facto standard
refers to a standard that has been widely accepted and used in an industry
without formal review and approval from a standards organisation. The PDF file
format for printable documents and the DVD format are examples.

On the other hand, a consensus-based standard goes through a formal
standards development process. Examples include Wi-Fi and FireWire. In such a
case, standardisation communities at a standards developing organisation (SDO),
such as the IEEE, IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) or ISO
(International Organization for Standardization), objectively assess the
feasibility and importance of a potential standard and then develop the
standard, which is distributed and maintained by the SDO once it has been
accepted.

So the IEEE first
comes into play in the development of a standard?

KK: Yes. While an idea
for a consensus-based standard is still at a conceptual stage, it is brought to
the IEEE as a possible project. The project is evaluated by a global community
of experts, through an open, consensus process, based on a set of criteria,
which includes market relevance, technical progress and any overlap with
existing work or other standards. Once the project is approved, a working group
develops a draft of the standard, and its adoption is decided by consensus in a
balloting group. From there, the IEEE-SA Standards Board makes a final decision
on whether the standard should be adopted.

Who benefits from industry standards?

How do standards
benefit companies, manufacturers and developers?

KK: Industry standards
make it easier and cheaper for companies to access and use certain
technologies. They can also provide manufacturers with real economic benefits,
like access to new markets. This can significantly contribute to a
corporation's bottom line and become a core part of its business strategy.

Sometimes,
manufacturers and developers are able to turn to one organisation to access an
entire ‘intellectual property palette' instead of having to negotiate licensing
agreements with a large number of companies.

To gauge the impact standards have on
industry, we might turn to figures from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development). The OECD estimates that standards and standard conformity
directly affect roughly 80 percent of all world trade.

How do standards
benefit consumers?

KK: Interoperability is a real benefit associated with
standards. Consider it from a consumers' perspective: when you purchase a
laptop, you expect that it will connect wirelessly to the internet no matter
where you are.

For example, think about a time
you might have been working at the office on an online document, then gone to a
café and searched for convenient times for a movie playing nearby, and finally
gone home to review and send emails.

Throughout the entire chain of
events, not once did you have to think about which standards were being used,
whether your laptop's wireless technology would work in these environments or
whether there would be an issue with your computer's power supply.
Interoperability of standards makes all of this - and much, much more -
possible.

Standards also maintain choice
for consumers, ensuring that several suppliers can supply similar but
compatible products, maintaining competition and keeping prices low while
offering a wider range of choices in any one category.

(In the second part of this
interview, Dr Karachalios talks about the groundbreaking co-operation between
the EPO and IEEE, the sometimes tenuous interaction between standards and
patents, and the future of industry standards.)

The benefits of standards on a national and
international level

Standards may firstly support
national health and safety; electrical and fire hazard standards are a prime
example. Furthermore, within any one country, the definition of standards may
ensure compatibility and interoperability between different industries, thereby
helping to develop more comprehensive and wider-reaching products and services.

In a world of increasing
globalisation, these benefits are increased by an order of magnitude. European
standards have been of great importance for the development of a single
European market, and the trend is now towards ever-increasing international co-operation. International
standards help to break down trade barriers and further world trade. The ever-expanding
globalisation of the car industry is a prime example.

About the IEEE
Standards Association (IEEE-SA)

The IEEE-SA is one of the world's
oldest and most recognised standards developing organisations. It has been developing
standards for more than a century across a broad range of industries, which now
include: power and energy, biomedical and healthcare, information technology,
telecommunications, transport and many others.

Unlike various other
international standards organisations which are based on treaties or extensions
of national government standards organisations, the IEEE-SA is a voluntary body
that determines community standards through consensus among its members.